Please help identify possible cause of death

[PacificaReef]

I'm so disappointed, but I lost my Orchid Dottyback yesterday. I'm hoping someone here may be able to help identify what the root cause was.

Context:
Orchid Dotty was purchased on 9/24/2020 and has been held in a qt tank with two other fish purchased around the same time nothing else. I treated the tank with API General Cure initially as a prophylactic method as I saw some scratching but no visible signs of anything. Dotty was the smallest fish in qt and at times the Firefish would harass him, but it didn't seem overly problematic. After the API GC I did water changes and ran carbon for about a week and decided to treat with PraziPro (day 1 then day 5), as I saw a little fleck of white on his pectoral underbelly, which then started to look like a blob of mucus on his underside belly area. LFS recommended Kanaplex which I treated dosing the water column (removing carbon) for 10 days. Which didn't do anything and as that went on he continued to hide more and more. I would see him pop out to grab a bite of food, but it looked like he would usually spit it back out before swallowing. Here is a picture after I found him yesterday on the bottom. When he was in the tank the white on his belly looked like mucus, but once I pulled him out of the tank it looks like his stomach maybe had an internal parasite?

Any ideas? My other two fish (firefish, bi-color blenny) are not presenting anything and appear to be completely normal.

 

[PacificaReef]

I just noticed my firefish has white stringy poo..

Going to run API GC 2x

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Well, the first thing to consider is that your dottyback has a lot of fin damage. Do you have anything in the tank that could have caused this damage after it died? Was it stuck onto a filter or something? Did the fins look like this before it died? Even the white thing on its belly could be a bite mark. While it may have had other issues, this fish looks like it was killed by another fish. My guess would be the blenny - they are smart, and will be on their best behavior when you are watching them, but leave the room and they can be real jerks. You saw some aggression from the firefish, but I just don't see one causing this kind of damage, but maybe?

Jay

 

[PacificaReef]

Well, the first thing to consider is that your dottyback has a lot of fin damage. Do you have anything in the tank that could have caused this damage after it died? Was it stuck onto a filter or something? Did the fins look like this before it died? Even the white thing on its belly could be a bite mark. While it may have had other issues, this fish looks like it was killed by another fish. My guess would be the blenny - they are smart, and will be on their best behavior when you are watching them, but leave the room and they can be real jerks. You saw some aggression from the firefish, but I just don't see one causing this kind of damage, but maybe?

Jay

Thanks for your questions and input. The fin damage was notable prior to him passing, and he didn't get stuck to a filter or anything. I saw him faintly alive hiding and then shortly after found him on his side. As far as the Blenny, I don't know them probably as well as you do, but the Dotty wasn't running scared from the Blenny when they were in close proximity, which the Blenny would often go into his little cave... but again, I didn't ever see the Blenny do anything.

If this was fin rot, I assumed the Kanaplex would solve that issue. I'm not wishing I had binded it to food, but I dumped it into the water column.

I've since cranked up the heater to 85 degrees and am planning to treat API GC via food. I'm kind of assuming it's an internal worm or something?

Please let me know if you don't think this is a good course of action. And if you have any other questions.

Again, I appreciate your taking an interest to help me here.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I would not raise the water temperature. Can you dose the GC in the water instead of the food? If the fire fish and blenny are symptom free, I would still say this was aggression.
Jay

 

[PacificaReef]

I would not raise the water temperature. Can you dose the GC in the water instead of the food? If the fire fish and blenny are symptom free, I would still say this was aggression.
Jay

Well, I did since notice the firefish has white stringy poo. Curious to hear why you suggest API GC in water column vs food soaking?

Will food soaking get rid of a possible internal infestation better? Or same effectiveness either way?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Regarding medicated food, yes that works best, but it has to be done correctly. Go to the article section and scroll down to the sixth one in the list, should be an article I wrote on medicated foods. Adding the meds to the water is second best if you can’t accurately dose the food.
Jay